A motion picture image that substantially completely encircles an audience, and that represents a substantially 360.degree. view taken by a motion picture camera, provides an enhanced entertainment effect. To further enhance the entertainment, it is desirable that the motion picture image have high resolution and vividness. This can lead to some difficulties in that each "frame" of film which represents the image on the 360.degree. screen, must have a considerable length, so that the process uses up large amounts of film.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,966,086 by D'Incerti et al describes a motion picture apparatus which is intended to display a 360.degree. image on a screen. This patent describes the showing of the motion picture at 16 frames per second, which would result in an image of poor quality and substantial flicker. Various other patents have been granted for this type of system wherein the projected motion picture image subtends a wide angle on a curved screen of at least about 180.degree., but to the best of the applicant's knowledge, there have been no successful attempts to actually produce and show such systems.